Can You Make Money With This Type of Writing?

When I started out in copywriting, I wrote for a pretty small business. (Never heard of “copywriting?” I’ll get to that in a moment.)

Our “headquarters” in the U.S. were a building bought for $1 from the city government.

And it was located in one of those neighborhoods where you could barely enjoy the sound of glass crackling under your feet, thanks to all thumping sound of hovering police helicopters.

This, by the way, was in the heart of what we all thought was a really big recession, in the early 1990s.

There was also a war. And a banking crisis. Real estate, along with the rest of the economy, was in the flusher. Politically, everybody was at each other’s throats. And nobody was sure it would ever get better.

(Sound familiar?)

Back then, this same small business I’m telling you about had maybe 20 or 25 employees, some of which have since joined circuses, been arrested, or disappeared—whereabouts unknown.

The less ambitious of us, however, stayed on and against all odds, managed to see that same company grow. And learned a lot about copywriting along the way.

My family and I now live (for at least a big part of the year) in Paris, France. I’m still a copywriter—but now work freelance.

My “commute” is a walk from bed to the kitchen for a cup of coffee, a teeth-brushing pit-stop, then to my laptop in my favorite chair in the living room.

We don’t even go to the grocery store.

My wife orders everything online. A day or two later, it all gets delivered.

For the kids, both the park and the zoo are just around the corner. Along with squares, cafes, and museums.

We walk to most restaurants.

I can do all this because as long as I have a place to recharge my laptop, I can work wherever.

Copywriters write advertising copy—often in the form of long letters—to sell everything from vitamins and newsletters to home- study courses, trips, books, property. You name it, and it’s probably been sold via letters written by copywriters.

It’s a mega-industry, ripe with opportunity. And yearning for people who can fuel it with fresh marketing messages. This is, in a nutshell, what I do and what I’ve done successfully for the last 20 or so years.

You need only a handful of clients. You can do almost everything via telephone or Internet. Your overhead costs are next to nothing. And there’s potential there to earn money even when you’re NOT working, in the form of mailing royalties.

The downside? It does involve a skill that you have to learn. And you’re much more likely to get your second client after you’ve found and significantly helped your first one.

I recommend this course, by the way, because there’s no better shortcut to mastery than studying the secrets someone else has already discovered.

Naturally, you don’t have to go the course route.

And I won’t mind if you don’t. But at least take a look at the pitch for this course, and note the things it emphasizes as important. That alone is enough to get you off on the right foot to funding your life overseas.